GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 430 should be 125% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 is a lot (about 133%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (133%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 is a small bit (more or less 17%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (17%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.